The book: Everyday Novelli (Jean-Christophe Novelli)
The recipe: p182, "Late Piquant 'Minute' Chicken"
It's Novelli time!
Jean-Christophe Novelli occupies a curious status within the Random Kitchen canon. The gods of randomness have only required me to make one of his recipes to date (a sloppy but broadly acceptable aubergine hummus). Despite this, my most-read posts by far are the original introductory piece on Everyday Novelli and - inevitably - the meringue swan saga to which I subjected myself as the swansong (ba-dum-tish) of the original run of this blog.
I can only conclude that either people are stumbling across my Novelli posts having googled this book because they find it every bit as ridiculous as I do, or my small but dedicated base of readers keep coming back to revisit my agony over and over again. Both seem perfectly plausible, making me glad that 2020 has given us a Novelli encounter fairly early in proceedings (well, I suppose Week 11 isn't that early, but we all know Lockdown Time doesn't follow normal rules).
Disappointingly, the recipe itself looks like it might be quite sensible. It's essentially a chicken and rice dish, with a (very!) long list of ingredients but nothing too outlandish. So I'm delighted to report that there's plenty of Novelli nonsense to unpack along the way.
It starts with the Ainsley-esque opaqueness of the title - at no point is the "late" explained, and it's a good thing there are sceptical quotation marks around the word "minute", because it turns out this is going to take 45 of them.
And then there's the introduction:
I realise I haven't explained anything about how this dish is made yet, but at the risk of spoilers, here are some initial observations:
- This recipe does not "create" stock which can be "served with" rice; it requires the reader to cook rice in stock. Which is a completely different thing.
- Sure, home cooking means not waiting for food delivery, but in this case you do have to spend the better part of an hour in the kitchen making the thing.
- This recipe is not "quicker to make than any takeaway recipe" for the simple reason that you do not MAKE a takeaway recipe, because THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF ORDERING A TAKEAWAY.
- "Make sure you use a jumbo cucumber."
Anyway, onward, with a growing sense of dread...
The prep: As I said, the ingredient list is long and imposing (I count no fewer than 23 items), but not actually too problematic. With a few exceptions, everything is either already in my cupboards or readily available nearby. I decide to substitute freshly grated nutmeg for powdered, since a pinch is all that's required, and some well-chopped sundried tomatoes will have to do instead of sundried tomato purée. Meanwhile, fresh thyme is something that Lewisham Asda isn't prepared to provide on this occasion, but I'm not trekking to the shopping centre for the sake of a fragrant twig.
Elsewhere on the herb front, there's a request for "50g fresh mixed herbs (e.g. tarragon, parsley and coriander)". That non-committal "e.g." is marvellous, isn't it? I do like a chef who goes to the trouble to create a recipe but isn't especially bothered about what you chuck in there at the end. Oh well - I can rustle up some fresh parsley and coriander, and I'm even adding some dried tarragon for the heck of it.
There's also this:
Wait a minute. Four gherkins? What happened to "Make sure you use a jumbo cucumber"? Am I supposed to use... four jumbo cucumbers? Is the jumbo cucumber exhortation entirely unconnected to the recipe and merely meant for my entertainment? This is deeply confusing. But given we've established that the author of the introductory text shows no sign of having ever actually read or made the recipe, I opt for four regular-sized gherkins after all. (Sorry, jumbo cucumber fans.)
And with that, we're ready to roll!
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| Some of the stars of the show |
The making: I start by preparing the rice. This involves sweating a chopped onion in olive oil for a few minutes then stirring in the rice along with a bay leaf, some thyme and the aforementioned nutmeg. Once stirred, stock is added - 450ml for 300g of rice, which feels a bit on the measly side, but we'll see - whereupon Novelli strikes again with the following instruction:
"Cover the pan with crumpled greaseproof paper, which acts as a lid but by allowing steam to escape it stops the rice from burning."
I mean, sure. You know what else acts as a lid but allows steam to escape?
That's right: A LID WITH A HOLE IN IT.
Sigh. Fine, okay, let's waste some perfectly good greaseproof paper by turning it into a makeshift pan lid, then. Why not. I'm not even sure I'm interpreting the phrasing correctly, but at least it looks quite interesting:
The rice is then left to cook over a very low heat "for 20-30 minutes or until the stock has been absorbed into the rice". The stock is absorbed into the rice pretty darned quickly (largely because there's not much stock there to begin with), but extensive use of the techniques for basmati contained in Curry Easy has taught me that Madhur Jaffrey likes a slow and steamy finish...
...and if it's good enough for Madhur, it's good enough for me. Indeed, the rice does steam itself to a very pleasant consistency in the end - though it still needs some stirring to avert the burning that I was assured the crumpled paper "lid" would prevent. Almost like it was a ridiculous idea in the first place.
In the meantime, I slice four chicken breasts "into 3cm pieces" (length? width? height? who knows), then sauté some garlic in a frying pan for a minute before throwing in a bay leaf and some more thyme.
"When the pan is hot" - it's hot already, J-C, you literally just told me to sauté some stuff in it - I add the chicken and cook it over a moderate heat "for 2 minutes to seal it". ("Minute" chicken indeed.)
The next step is to stir in all of the ingredients in the world. That means some tomato purée, chopped sundried tomatoes, 200g of mushrooms (halved), the juice of a lemon, some caster sugar, some English mustard, an entire teaspoon (!) of Tabasco (I suppose the titular "piquant" had to come from somewhere), and the sliced non-jumbo gherkins.
Oh, and this:
Reader, what's your first reaction on seeing the phrase "1 litre double cream" in a recipe for a chicken and rice dinner? It's probably quite similar to mine:
That cannot possibly be right, can it? Four chicken breasts, a handful of mushrooms and a litre of double cream? It must be a misprint, though I can't work out how. Even supposing it is meant to be that way (is the "flavoursome stock" of the blurb actually referring to a shit-ton of cream?), I apply an immediate veto if only for the sake of my arteries. A 250ml tub of double cream is my absolute maximum here, and even then, I cautiously start with half a tub before going any further.
In the end, I come to the conclusion that the dish can probably cope with the full 250ml - it'll be rich, but not ridiculously so - and end up with this:
See, that's a decent amount of liquid, isn't it? Looks about right for chicken and sauce, yeah? Now imagine it with another three tubs of double cream in there.
I can't even.
Disaster averted one way or another, all that remains is to stir in the vaguely defined herbs then serve up some spoonfuls of this creamy, chicken-y goodness on a bed of the rice.
The eating: Let's not beat around the bush. I've been quite mean to old Jean-Christophe in this post, and not without reason - but this is actually good.
I was a little sceptical when the recipe didn't ask me to do any more simmering after the stirring-in stage - surely the mushrooms would still be basically raw, never mind the inside of the chicken - but actually, there are so many things to stir in that it takes a few minutes to get it all mixed together, and that's enough to finish cooking what needs to be cooked.
And the end result is a seriously nice little dinner.
It's a bit simpler than the endless ingredient list suggests it's going to be, I have to say. The flavour combination of tomatoes, gherkins and tabasco almost gives it a hamburger relish vibe, which makes it feel a bit like student food (albeit seriously pimped-up student food). The tabasco kick is just about right, though - good thing it didn't get diluted through four times as much cream.
And speaking of the cream, I reckon you could happily use low-fat crème fraîche here without compromising on the decadence too much. That's exactly what I'll try when I make it again. (But still only 250ml of the stuff.)
Other than evoking the taste of chicken shop burger sauce, I'm not quite sure what "takeaway recipe" Novelli is trying to replicate here, nor am I
any the wiser as to what makes this "late" - is it meant to be a late-night feast? Has anyone ever got a solid night's sleep with that much cream inside them?
But putting aside the usual
bullshit that inevitably comes with a trip through the pages of Everyday Novelli, it's a fairly straightforward process that delivers a satisfying punch at the end of it. Hurrah!
In conclusion, then: This is a really tasty recipe provided you apply common sense, use a normal pan lid like a normal person, and - most crucially of all - IGNORE EVERYTHING JEAN-CHRISTOPHE NOVELLI EVER SAYS.
Two-word verdict: Stupid. Good.
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